No fewer than 200 senior nurses in the services of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) on grade level 14 who were invited and sat for promotion examination sometime in November 2025 to the next grade level have been thrown into confusion.
Reliable sources hinted that out of over 200 such nurses serving in various hospitals across the FCT, who were due to be moved to management cadres, only five of them have so far been promoted.
Information reaching us at Greenbarge Reporters online newspaper showed that others who have been so thrown into confusion, including top leaders of the nurses’ union have been running around the Civil Service Commission of the Federal Capital Territory Administration to be educated on what actually went wrong four months after the promotion examination.
It was gathered that the only reason given by the authorities for withholding the promotion has been that the affected nurses have not met the conditions for promotion even when five of them have been elevated.
The condition, according to a circular, signed by the chairman of the FCT Civil Service Commission, Chief Emeka Eze, is that the affected nurses obtained their B.Sc Degrees less than three years before the promotion examination last year.
In the circular, dated 26th March 2026, with reference number FCT/CSC/COMM/S.230, Chief Eze said that in applying “the automatic conversion privilege to a Nursing Officer, the date of the officer’s degree certificate is taken into consideration. ” “The officer’s maturity to the next grade level will start counting from the first January of the year after the date of acquisition of the degree certificate. ” “For example, if an Officer’s B.Sc Nursing degree certificate is dated 16th October 2021, his or her maturity for next promotion will start from 1st January 2022; in which case the Officer will not sit for promotion examination until 1st January, 2025 after three years of maturity as a degree holder.”
But the confused nurses are asking the question as to why would the authority invite them for promotion examination in November 2025 when it knew that it was not yet time for them to be promoted to the next grade level.
“What criteria the authority used in promoting only five of us, some of who obtained their Degrees less than two years ago whereas those of us that have not been elevated obtained our own as far back as 2022?” one of the affected nurses who pleaded to remain anonymous because they are still talking with the authority, asked.
He said that nurses, especially in the services of the FCT have always believed in dialogue to solve issues such as this one, saying: “we are never known to cause problem for the Administration despite several causes for such.”
He pleaded with the FCT Minister, Barrister Nyeson Wike to immediately intervene by causing the Civil Service Commission to effect their promotion based on the promotion examination they sat for in November 2025, the same way five of their colleagues who joined them in that examination have been promoted.
The affected nurses described the latest circular, which contradicted the circular issued in 2015 as “an afterthought.”
Efforts to reach out to the FCT Civil Service Commission chairman, Chief Emeka Eze for his comment on the matter did not yield result. He neither picked several phone calls from us nor responded to our Whatsapp messages and SMS.
